Every area of life has its own ‘jargon.’
This word came into English in the late 1300s from a French source word that meant ‘meaningless chatter or noise.’
It was applied, in those ancient times, to the twittering of flocks of birds.
But since the mid-1600s ‘jargon’, says the Oxford, has been ‘applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession.’
And the sort of ‘jargon that is bane of our lives these days is corporate ‘jargon’—which spreads from the management suite to politics and the media and annoys us all.
A list compiled by the great British wordsmith Suzie Dent includes the following examples:
Sunsetting—fixing an end date for something
Grandfathering—keeping things in place for now but changing it all in the future.
Taking a haircut—accepting a loss without being wiped out.
Fiscal headroom—we think have enough money.
Key takeaway—no, not food, but the message you are supposed to remember.
Polycrisis—lots of things going wrong at once.
EOD—the time when this needs to be finished: End Of the Day.
Whiteboarding—putting something up for discussion by the group.
Deficit—that (relatively) small amount of money we’ve overspent this year.
Debt—the massive amount of money we owe because of years of borrowing.
And so on.
Suzie Dent says the whole point is that ‘jargon’ makes an utterance clear to those in the inner circle but unclear to everyone else.
The people in positions of leadership (in the political and corporate worlds) often don’t want us (the mob, the great unwashed) to understand.
We should just take their (jargon filled) word for that everything is going okay.
\Yeah, right!
Tonight I'll join John Stanley for 'The Word Clinic' on 2GB, 4BC, 2CC and the Tapt Radio Network -- right after the 10pm news. This is the chance for you to take part, either on the talkback line or by texting, so join us tonight.
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BY THE WAY...
If you'd like to see my A-Z list of Aussie slang, you'll find it here in the Australian Geographic website -- A-Z list of Aussie slang. Here’s the link: The A-Z of Aussie slang - Australian Geographic
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